Mixtape #3

I’ve been listening to Miyeko’s koto for a long time now, especially through Michel Benita’s records, with his band Ethics, which has been around for more than 10 years now. The colour that Mieko brings with his instrument touches me very deeply. She manages to make us travel in her Japanese tradition and succeeds in getting us out of it in an instant to take us elsewhere. She manages to mix her instrument in very different contexts, and of course, often far from the usual aesthetics. It’s obviously something that spoke to me a lot… She’s, I think, the first person I thought of for this mixtape, because I really wanted to meet her and talk to her!

We met at the Cully Festival in Switzerland several years ago. He was playing a duet with a cellist. After their concert, there was an open stage and I took the opportunity to join them. I had already loved the concert and to have been able to exchange musically left me with an incredible memory. Since that day, I am completely “faccinized” (like the sound engineer I work with) and I listen to him very often. With this mixtape#3, focused on strings and folk, it was very natural for me to think of him and I am delighted that he accepted my invitation.

Same thing for Federico, guitarist with whom I often work, especially within my new trio Jokers, with a little extra for this evening: Vincent Ségal confided to me that he really wanted to meet him, because he could already see himself imagining musical lines with him, building a dialogue with his cello and his guitar, exchanging as much on the rhythmic level as on the colours of the sounds… In short, a strong desire to have him in this project and very curious, also, to attend this meeting within the band itself.

I won’t introduce Vincent anymore… Especially since this is not our first try! A small precision all the same which validates all the more his presence for this evening: apart from the fact that he is a string player, that I love his way of playing, that I like his great culture and his openness to music, he is and has also been a privileged playing partner of Piers, with whom they have recorded several times, Vincent having also worked as a director for the latter. So it was even more obvious to have him for this mixtape#3!